Friday, August 31, 2012

Remember that time you won a Taste Award for Best Web
Food Program, which included a fabulous trip to Estonia, but you were
too afraid to fly over an ocean, so you asked your dear friend and fellow food
blogger, Average Betty, to go on the trip for you, and she had an amazing time,
and when your friends and family saw the pictures they couldn’t believe what an
idiot you were for not going?

That’s right, I didn’t go on what could’ve been the trip of
a lifetime because I’m afraid to fly. Actually, I’m not that scared of flying –
it’s the crashing that I’m really not into. Anyway, as you’ll see on her blog,
Sara went and represented like a boss.

By the way, the painfully cute spoon pictured here is a souvenir that Sara brought back for me. I've heard nothing but great things about Estonia, but that they have freakishly small wooden spoons there tells me all I need to know.

Even though I didn’t make it over there myself, I want to
thank the Taste Awards for the honor, and the fine people of Estonia for making
the trip possible. Enjoy!

Hi Chef John! We were just introduced to your blog about a week ago. My kids love you and my husband loves both of your recipies that we've already tried! My 2 yr old comes in my room and says, "Mommy! I want to watch, 'Enjoy!'"

I had an incredible dinner tonight. I had my sister over for Friday night dinner together with her guy for the first time in my house. So I decided to go big with an all-French three-course dinner.

For starters I made that French Onion Soup that makes the mimes go chatty. (http://foodwishes.blogspot.se/2008/09/french-onion-soup-so-good-it-will-make.html) I made the chicken stock and beef stock to go with it of course and even baked some French bread to go under the Gruyere cheese, which we assumed, came out of the French speaking part of Switzerland. I’m not very experienced, but I have to go along with you and urge all the people: Make that soup!

For the main course I went with that “Sous vide” technique with some “sirloin stakes” (thanks google for the translation. I can only hope it turned out right.)(http://foodwishes.blogspot.se/2011/01/stovetop-sous-vide-episode-2-ny-strip.html). They were quite amazed with the result. To go with the stakes I made Béarnaise sauce using the same technique as for the Hollandaise sauce: http://foodwishes.blogspot.se/2007/03/hollandaise-101-can-sauce-really-sense.html. (I made the Hollandaise version once with Salmon for my mother. She loved it!) Naturally I served this with French fries all though you don’t want us to.(http://foodwishes.blogspot.se/2009/07/french-fries-so-nice-because-you-cook.html) I didn’t set off any fires.

For dessert I made Chocolate Lave Cake. But I called it “Fondant au chocolat“. (http://foodwishes.blogspot.se/2009/02/chocolate-lave-cake-20-return-of-molten.html)

The whole dinner came out of Foodwishes Chef John and I had a great time. I’m exhausted. But it has been a dream for some time to make this come together. Thank you for all the inspiration and tuition!

Totally off subject. I just saw the post about you making it to Portland , and long story short, i started a food cart here semi - inspired by your sushi blog about it not translating as fish.A light bulb went off, vegetarian sushi. I made a go of it for three years. And now Im in culinary school still catering veg sushi! Thanks chef John! You R amazing and am sure have inspired many others n their journeys into culinary. Much love. So glad u liked Portland!

There are certain things in life that are worth the risk: a good woman, the perfect job, a great roller-coaster and...A FREE TRIP TO ESTONIA!!!1! Hello????? Who the heck could pass up a free trip like that? If you were that afraid of flying, just ask your doctor for a strong tranquilizer. That way you'd be knocked out before the plane even taxis and wouldn't know it if you went down in a ball of fire. Just sayin'.

I'm excited to see this recipe. We spent July in Estonia and had many good meals.

You should try to get over your fear of crashing. See if you can get a sedative before flying... The kind where you are so relaxed that you just don't care about anything. The more you fly the less scared you will be.